Promised Reunion
by Connieroo
Summary: After the 'Promised Reunion' end. Ib and Garry went their separate ways, both troubled by horrific nightmares but unable to tell anyone. Eight years later, when Ib is seventeen and Garry twenty four, Ib is accepted to an art college where Garry is a teacher. Soon after, they are both launched back into the traumatising gallery, this time in much more danger than before...
1. Chapter 1

Purplish hair. Intense black eyes. A long, dark face.

It had been seven years, but Ib was sure it was Garry.

He looked her way and their eyes locked, registering change. Garry was taller and looked older and sadder, but the familiar twinkle was still in his eyes. She felt a lump of emotion in her chest, a ball of worry and sadness and terror that she had developed ever since she had made it out of the gallery. The only person who understood had been miles away, and she had faced the nightmares alone.

Before she could stop herself she ran at him and hugged him tight. She longed for the warmth and comfort that she hadn't felt since the gallery, the smell of cinnamon and honey that always lingered around him.

'Ib?' Garry managed to say, once he had got over the shock.

'Garry,' Ib replied, still buried in his coat.

She felt tears welling up in her eyes, after seven years she had finally found the tall boy that kept recurring in her dreams. She had finally found the person who she could talk to after all the years.

'Ib, it's... It's been so long! You look so different!' Garry said. He wiped her eyes and studied her.

'Listen, I need to talk to you,' Ib said quietly. 'About the roses.'

'You've got yours back too?' Garry whispered. Ib brought out the red rose from underneath her coat. Garry showed her the blue one.

'But what does it mean?' he mused. 'We aren't... We aren't going back into the gallery, are we?' His eyes suddenly turned wide and scared.

'Garry, I...' Ib started, but choked up. 'Garry, I have the most terrible nightmares. The mannequin heads, the lady in red, the dolls, the headless statues, all chasing me, demanding my rose...'

'It's okay, Ib,' Garry said, holding her tight like he used to. 'We need to talk somewhere more private. We're in the middle of a school corridor...'

'Oh, okay,' Ib replied.

'Listen, I'll come over to yours tonight,' Garry said. 'We need to talk. Just don't tell anyone, okay?'

Ib realised that they were getting odd looks from the other students. Suddenly she was tapped on the shoulder and spun around.

She found herself face to face with a raven haired girl. She had obsidian eyes and wore a small skirt and a tight lavender top which matched Garry's hair.

'Why are you hugging my boyfriend?' she demanded, and Ib's stomach dropped. She wasn't quite sure what she felt for Garry, but she knew the feeling was strong. What else could make her feel as strange as she did?

'Oh, I just knew him from a long time ago,' she said quickly, wiping her eyes. 'Like, when I was nine. We haven't seen each other in ages.'

'Well then, I would be more comfortable if you kept off of him,' the girl said coldly. Ib imagined her rose to be black like her hair, a hostile and dark colour.

Garry looked at Ib apologetically.

'Ib, this is Sam, my - fiancé,' he explained.

'Sam, this is Ib, my friend.' He said the word friend carefully, as if saying it could be interpreted any way you liked.

Ib couldn't help feeling an emotion that she had felt only once before. She had woken up in the gallery and seen Mary slumped against Garry, asleep, her hand on his. She had wanted to do something, but just stopped herself.

And now Garry was getting married. She wanted to scream and shout that the world was unfair, that she had never got what she wanted, and now she couldn't even have the boy that she had wished for for the last seven years?

She suddenly realised what the feeling was. It was jealousy. She immediately felt guilty.

Another feeling was creating turmoil in her heart as well. She knew what it was immediately. She had heard it described in so many songs, it was unmistakable.

She was in love with Garry.


	2. Chapter 2

Garry had been getting cold feet, even before Ib arrived.  
He knew he shouldn't feel this way, he had a girlfriend and Ib was seventeen and he was a student teacher and twenty four...  
But all the same, he knew he was in love with her.  
She probably didn't love him back the same way. He knew that she had always liked him only as a big brother, and had probably never even thought about him in the last few years. He, however, was always wondering how she was, whether she was safe...  
Sam was great and all, another student teacher who he had taken a liking to. However, he felt as though he had been blackmailed into agreeing to marry her; her father had threatened to take away his position as a teacher if not. Well, not threatened, just gently hinted that marrying her was one "small" condition.

Garry knocked on the door, and Ib opened it. She looked pale and frightened. He couldn't help noticing that she was still tiny compared to him.  
'Ib, we need to talk,' Garry said grimly.  
The small girl led him into her living room. Before Garry could do anything, Ib just hugged him again. She was in floods of tears.  
'Garry, we're going back into the gallery,' she sobbed into his chest.  
Garry felt his breathing quickening. He looked down at Ib, who was still buried in his coat, the same dark blue trench coat that he had worn in the original gallery.  
'Ib, I won't let you get hurt. I promise. We'll stick together. We'll get out alive,' Garry soothed, but Ib just cried harder.  
'B - but Guertena said that one of us had to die,' she snivelled.  
'Then it'll be me,' Garry said bravely, although he didn't feel brave at all. 'Dear me, Ib, you don't think I would let anything happen to you?'  
She shook her head.  
'Listen, we need to take your mind off it,' he said. 'What do you enjoy most?'  
'Painting.' Ib pointed to the canvases all around the room. There were several pictures of the smiling blue dolls, some of the mannequin heads crying blood, the headless statues and even the lady in red.  
But the one that caught Garry's eye was an intricate picture of two roses, one red and one blue. Their stalks intertwined, and there seemed to be a petal falling off the red rose.  
'Ib... That's amazing!' Garry said softly. 'They look just like the real things!' He set down his rose on the table. It looked a little wilted.  
'Got a vase?' he asked, and Ib pointed to a tall vase in the corner. Garry placed his rose in the water and immediately felt refreshed.  
'I first realised that you were here when I saw your entry painting,' he said.  
He had been browsing through the entries with the other teachers, when he had come across a picture that looked disturbingly like him and Ib holding hands and walking through the gallery corridor, with a headless statue guarding the exit door. Their footsteps had been marked by rose petals.  
Only him, Ib and Mary had been in the gallery, and Mary had been destroyed, so Ib must have painted it. Unsurprisingly, Ib had been accepted immediately.  
Garry ran his hand through his hair. He had always hated his hair. Who even has lilac hair? However, the only thing it was good for was spotting him in a crowd or from far away.  
'I just wanted to paint it,' Ib said quietly. 'I've been thinking about you - I mean, the gallery - since we were in there. I guess it just helped to paint it. I threw away all my dolls and a dress mannequin that I had in my room. It resembled the heads so much it was terrifying.'  
Garry felt warmth spread right to his fingers. So Ib had been thinking about him. She had obviously tried to cover up her mistake.  
'I'm miserable,' Ib said suddenly. 'I have no friends, boys never notice me, and I've had one on my mind for ages. But I know he'll never like me back. He just thinks of me as a little sister.'  
'You - you have no friends?' Garry said.  
'Everyone thinks I'm odd. I don't sleep at night, so I'm tired during the day, and sometimes I just zone out during lessons. It's scary, I see things that aren't there, like the school cat turns into the lady in red and the teacher has a mannequin head and my schoolmates are all headless statues.'  
'I know, that happens to me as well,' Garry admitted.  
Ib stared at the table. 'Garry, we - we go back into the gallery tomorrow night.'


End file.
